NEWS: WOMEN COMING TOGETHER, KNOWING OUR UNITY
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From: Jeanie D.
Date: Sunday, April 20, 2008, 9:48 AM
Subject: News: Women coming together, knowing our unity
ID: 260532

To all the women of these times, coming together, each in our own way, and knowing ourselves to be one mighty wave of change upon our planet...

Are you feeling with us a kind of intensity, almost a need to come forward for the common good, at the same time being asked to participate in your personal life in very deep ways? GTW salutes you for all that you are and do, from personal steps to global actions, as we feel our way into the future together. Our steps are creating something new...

Please look through the collage of possibilities below and follow the links that call you. As we gather together in myriad ways, we are supporting one another to grow into the tasks before us.

With blessings, Jeanie, Marilyn, Joy, and Clare

Highlights (more info below)...

• Standing Women on May 11.
• GTW and Jean Bolen's "Urgent Message from Mother": do a circle at your local bookstore?
• Opportunities at GTW to create circles, become Regional Coordinators or International Anchors, host a local online network.
• GTW Canada, Victoria: the "maidens" are hosting the last in the Margaret Fulton series, Sunday Apr 20.
• GTW Europe: planning a gathering for 2009.
• GTW Australia, GTW Africa, GTW Intl Women's Day events: continuing the gathering.
• News about UN CSW, Sophia Women's World Conference, Jaipur Peace Conference.

Suggestions for next gatherings ...

• The women of Ohio are once again calling us to stand together for a better world. Join us in taking a local/global stand on May 11 (Mother's Day in many nations) for the "world's children and grandchildren and for the 7 generations beyond them". Last year over 3500 standings in 76 countries were registered. To feel the unity, and to register your standing, go to www.StandingWomen.org .

• Consider hosting a gathering at your local bookstore, featuring Jean Shinoda Bolen's paperback release of Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World. Amplify and personalize Jean's message by standing in for her at your bookstore and using your own words. Click here for more information. Or if Jean is speaking somewhere near you, consider supporting her by speaking about Gather the Women, as Beth Blevin of GTW's North Bay, CA network did when Jean spoke there.
• Think about creating an ongoing circle from your standing or bookstore event. Or go to our interactive website and use GTW's "LightPages" to find others in your area. We offer many ideas about gathering at www.gatherthewomen.org, including events, resources and sister organizations that may call or inspire you. Feel free to contact Marilyn@gatherthewomen.org for more information or click here to see a list of GTW International Anchors and Regional Coordinators to connect with in your area.
  [Our sister organizations at www.MillionthCircle.org and www.CircleConnections.org are other great resources.]
• Already involved in circles? Consider becoming a GTW International Anchor or Regional Coordinator, and join the team of women empowering themselves into local leadership, while connecting globally. We offer Regional Coordinator community telecalls and GTW online networks for cities, regions and countries, connected into the Matrix, so that each group can be truly local AND global. To reach a real person about becoming a Coordinator, contact Joy@gatherthewomen.org . To find out more about setting up a local GTW online community, contact Jeanie@gatherthewomen.org
• Ready to gather internationally? Check out GTW in your part of the world... GTW Canada, GTW Europe, GTW Australia, GTW Africa, with GTW India coming. Also check out the new website of our sister organization Peace x Peace at www.peacexpeace.org, featuring many ways to develop circle relationships with women across countries. Imagine the web of connectivity as women from developed and developing countries come into authentic relationship.

And more news of gathering and self-empowering... from around the world

From GTW Europe, Judy Grosch, Martine D'Haeselleer, and Patricia McGrath write.... "We would like to invite the women of Europe to participate in cocreating a GTW European Congress, which is in the early stages of planning for October 2009. Consider these questions... What are your concerns in these times? What are your longings? Women who are called to become involved, please contact Judy at KNGrosch@aol.com (Germany), Martine at martinedh@gmail.com (Canary Islands), or Patricia at patmcg@alice.it (Italy). We envision women coming together in an environment of trust, fostering authentic communication and the spirit of collaboration for the benefit of the entire European community."

From GTW Canada, Clare Peterson writes... (excerpts) "Since the Victoria Congress in 2006, our six member core has nurtured themes of WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP and CROSS BORDER CONNECTIONS. ... Highlighting our friendships with women from Canada and the U.S. was our special second cross border retreat last Fall in Victoria at Glenairley~ Centre for Earth and Spirit. It was enriching to actually hear the individual pieces of GTW history shared by women who had created and attended many of the milestones along the way. ... On April 20, the young Maidens from the Margaret Fulton Leadership series are hosting an event,” In the Spirit of Multigenerational Wisdom and Conscious Growth” and it is a delight to say that we ‘almost elders’ are to be their guests!!" [More]

From GTW Australia, Robyn Craig writes... (excerpts) "This year, women from five different regions of Australia organised and celebrated International Women's Day under the banner of Gather the Women Global Matrix. A wonderful result ... 2008 is an important year for Gather the Women here. At present there is a reluctance by women to become involved or stay involved, due mainly to this intense energy to get things done and lack of time to do them in. However, very present also is a soul yearning by Australian women to be more of who they are and in the bigger picture 'be the changes they want to see in the world'. Our wonderful, mysterious sacred feminine . . . it will unfold!" [More]

From GTW Africa, after several posts about the grave difficulties in Kenya, recent words from Joyce Oneko are optimistic. "Dear Friends, At last, Kibaki and Raila have formed a government, and we have a new cabinet! It is too large by far, at 40, but we can now breath and start a journey of reconstruction of our lives and the country. I have just come from attending a very big tourism event, hosting over 200 international journalists, and I hope that they can now go preach the gospel that Kenya IS BACK! I hope that from now on, my messages will be only full of hope and success stories. Thank you my friends for "HOLDING OUR HANDS" and for keeping all of us in your prayers. Amani (Peace)." See more of Joyce's posts at the GTW Africa network.

About GTW March gatherings celebrating International Women's Day. Thirty-two events celebrating International Women's Day were held across the United States, as well as in Canada, Australia, and for the first time, in Germany!! Events ranged from intimate gatherings of small circles, to programs of several hundred people, tuning in to the many events around the world celebrating women. Check them out on our March 2008 Calendar. GTW's March gatherings are playing important roles in bringing local women into community. See GTW on YouTube.com for one example, Nevada County, California, where March gatherings and the GTW Nevada County online network are building community relationships between different circles and organizations.

About the United Nations, Committee on the Status of Women, New York, Feb 25-Mar 7, Jeanie DeRousseau writes... "Two exciting threads are continuing the energy at CSW for another Women's World Conference following the 1995 Conference in Beijing. Jean Bolen's workshop holding the vision for a 5th UN Women's World Conference assembled more than 100 enthusiastic women this year. More info at www.5WWC.org. The Sophia Women's World Conference, a multi-sector initiative that grew out of last year's CSW activities for the 5WWC, was launched at a formal reception. It is to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria May 25-29, 2010. See www.sophia2010.org to join the synchronistic organic arising that is "the journey to Sophia". The official report about the Commission's work on women's financing can be viewed at www.ngocsw.org".

About the Jaipur Summit Conference on "Making Way for the Feminine for the Benefit of the World Community", Jaipur, India, March 7, sponsored by the Global Peace Initiative of Women (www.gpiw.org).

Kathe Schaaf writes...(excerpts) "The base note for this Summit was provided by our host country. India is herself a complex blend of ancient spiritual traditions and modern economic challenges, of beautiful landscapes and brutally difficult living conditions. The complex middle range of the summit’s fragrance was made up of the many diverse voices of the participants. The top note of our lovely fragrance was definitely provided by love. ... the real feminine energy at the event unfolded during the breaks, when people were drawn together organically for spontaneous connection." [Read the entire report titled "Good news from Jaipur: God is not a patriarch" at www.KatheSchaaf.blogspot.com.]

Karen Latvala of our sister organization, Vessels of Peace (www.vesselsofpeace.com), writes... (excerpts) There were about 450 women from 45 countries, and a few men too! ... Women from conflict zones who came to share the pain and ask for support. Women who work amidst extreme poverty who want to tell us that a hand up is always better than a hand out. Women and men who have worked for a better world all their lives. ... I don’t know exactly what will come out of the conference, but I have no doubt it will be a lot! The energy was high, women connected, and all the alliances, both formal and informal, will create powerful change." [More]

Both Kathe and Karen have gathered the personal experiences and words of many of the participants, as has Father Preshant, who describes...

• The first female rabbi in Israel shared how she has to struggle to survive in a male- dominated rabbinic tradition. Tears of compassion rolled down her face when she responded to the cry for peace based on justice of a Palestinian.
• The Palestinian peace activist shared how he has to struggle to convince his fellow countrymen that all Israelis are not evil and they should not be demonized.
• The Shia and Sunni women from Iraq sat side by side and expressed their anguish at being religious pawns in a global game for economic and political power.
• ...and more